


All the King's Horses

by belovedmuerto



Series: All the King's Horses [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Post CA:TWS, Reunion, Sam POV, but apparently not as much as you would expect, or starting to, putting bucky back together again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2672612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course it's just after Steve and Sam stop searching the world for Bucky Barnes that he finally shows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the King's Horses

**Author's Note:**

> Um, so. Apparently I write in more than one fandom now? I've never done this before. Here's hoping I'm not terrible at it! Please let me know if I'm doing terribly at it. And I promise I'm not giving up on Sherlock (or on my empath!John), I just need a break. And I am consumed of late by emotions regarding Steven G. Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes, so. Seems a good time to take that break and do something else.
> 
> Anyway, believe it or not but this was originally going to be just a short bit of almost-fluff about Steve cooking for Sam while they're in the wind, looking for Bucky. Somehow... it turned into this. And it's going to keep going. Eventually, I probably will write Steve cooking for Sam (he's better at it than he thought he'd be). 
> 
> With thanks to moonblossom for a quick beta for me. And ha, I'm writing about Americans this time! I don't have to worry about getting this picked for language! (Although I had to reword things OUT of brit-speak a few times, no lie.)

They're somewhere in southern Spain when it becomes truly obvious to Sam that Steve is beginning to lose hope. The despair is starting to win, and Sam isn’t sure there’s anything he can do about it, short of sorting out this whole “track down the Winter Soldier slash Steve’s childhood best pal” for him, and they both know that it’s not Sam who will find James Buchanan Barnes for Steve. It just isn’t.

He’s mostly along for the ride; moral support, ever the counselor, so other than trying--unsuccessfully, yet again--to get Steve to eat a full meal and maybe get more than two hours of sleep that night, he waits. Waiting is a thing they’ve both learned to be good at, although it seems to sit just a bit easier with Sam than it does with Steve. Steve is restless and on edge, hyper-aware at all times. 

But then, it’s not Riley who’s still alive. It’s not Riley they’re searching for, so it’s easier for Sam to be patient than it is for Steve.

So he’s patient. He makes sure he has Steve’s back, and he tries to get him to eat. When Steve wakes up after a nightmare, on those rare occasions he actually sleeps, Sam sits next to him quietly. Twice, Steve lets Sam hug him. Once he takes the expedient route of just crawling into bed with Steve, and once Steve crawls into his bed. Steve chokes as he tries to talk about what he dreams about. Drowning, Sam gathers. And falling, but not just himself falling, Bucky falling as well. Sam’s had his own nightmares of falling, of Riley falling, so he understands. 

They’ve been chasing after Bucky, after the Winter Soldier for months now, all over the globe and back again, and it seems that they’re always one step behind. Sam’s sure _he_ must be aware that they’re trailing after him (like groupies), because they’re always one step behind, and that definitely seems to be on purpose; they’re always turning up just as the latest Hydra base or camp or weapons cache is burning merrily.

Sam wonders if he’s doing it for Steve. Maybe he’s proving something, always ahead, leaving them these sick, charred presents. Leaving Steve these presents, because this certainly isn’t for Sam. 

He wants to tell Steve how fucked up that is, but he’s not sure that’s his place.

He’s still not sure that this man is the kind you save, but then, Sam also knows that everyone breaks, eventually. And they had Barnes for decades. No one could withstand that. How would you even try?

So maybe he is the kind you save.

Maybe the Winter Soldier is saving himself.

\--

Sam wakes with a jolt, with Steve shaking his shoulder.

“We’re going,” Steve says. His hair is still sleep-mussed, but he’s dressed and alert.

“Is something on fire?” Sam asks, his own voice slurred and rough with sleep. Because usually, when it’s time to go, it’s because something is on fire. So it totally makes sense for something to be on fire right now. Something that Barnes set on fire. Once something they set on fire, when Barnes left it for them. That had definitely been on purpose, there is no way they were that close behind him.

They’d stayed longer that time, Steve watching it burn with a grim, determined look on his face, and Sam watching Steve, watching the cracks widen just a little bit more. 

He’s been there. All soldiers have.

“Nothing’s on fire, Sam. It’s just. It’s time to go,” Steve replies. He sounds tired. Exhausted.

But it’s not just that. Sam can hear it. Steve’s _done_. The despair of this wild goose-chase has finally won. This is not something Sam’s going to be able to help with. No one will, he thinks. No amount of talking can fix this. No one can reach Steve in this, because the only person who could possibly understand is also the most notorious assassin on the planet, a rogue gone rogue.

So unless he shows up sooner rather than later, things are going to be really rough for a while.

Sam can handle that. He just can’t fix it. 

\--

Natasha is waiting for them outside baggage claim when they touch down in New York, leaning against a sky blue Jaguar that is most definitely parked in a no parking zone. She’s dressed like, well, like Tony Stark’s vision of the perfect sexy secretary, pretty much. The wig and her makeup and expression practically turn her into a different woman, but Steve seems to recognize her immediately. When they approach, she pushes off the car and wraps her arms around Steve, surprising all of them, and kisses him on the cheek.

Steve blushes, and she cracks a small smile, a quirk of her fantastic lips, really. 

Natasha glances over and Sam and tilts her head, and Sam remembers the first time he saw her. 

Her hair looks even better curly, even if it isn’t her real hair.

“How you doing?” he says.

She smiles again, and to Sam it feels genuine, like she has decided he’s worthy of notice. “Hey.”

And then it’s back to business. She hands Steve a phone that’s practically the size of a tablet. 

“Stark’s latest research on the tech of his arm is in here, not that it’ll be much use to you right now. But you might need it, if he comes in from the cold. He says that if you can convince him to come in, he’s pretty sure he can do any diagnostics on it that might be needed, any calibration. Maybe some upgrades.”

Steve just blinks at her, stunned or exhausted or something else.

“Really, I think he just wants to get his hands on the tech, and probably tinker with it. He thinks it’s based on some of his early stuff.” She shrugs.

“Does he know that--”

“He’s aware. He made some quip about sending you his therapy bills, but considering he’s never gone to a therapist in his life, maybe you should just send Pepper a really big wine basket.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Steve manages.

“I’m in there, too.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees, and Natasha gives him a look like he’s not getting something. Sam can see it--this is not a woman who gives her phone number to just anyone. Steve is important to her. She cares about him. 

“If you need me, Steve, I’ll come.” She’s staring at him now, and frankly so is Sam.

Steve looks back at her for a moment, and it sinks in. “Thank you, Natasha.”

She smiles and nods a bit. “Clint too, but I’m pretty sure he’s still on a bender after New York, so he might not be the best person to call. He copes weird. Remind me to tell you what happened after Budapest sometime.”

Steve smiles, and Sam feels his eyes go a little wide.

“Will do.” 

“All right boys, I’ve got a flight to catch.” Natasha slips a pair of aviator sunglasses on and shakes out her hair. She smiles at both of them and grabs the handle of the tiny suitcase that sits next to her. 

Steve leans down and kisses her cheek. “Thanks, Natasha.”

“Sure thing, Cap. Take care of yourself.” She drops the keys to the car in his hand, and both Sam and Steve watch as she saunters away down the sidewalk. 

\--

Turns out, Steve owns a townhouse in Brooklyn. He rents out the ground floor apartment to a nice older lady called Mrs Goldblum, and the second floor to a pair of tech startup millionaire hipsters, and he keeps the third floor for himself.

It’s near where he and Bucky grew up, and it’s there that he takes Sam, in the ridiculous sports car.

The little old lady on the first floor sticks her head out of her door when they’re in the foyer. Steve raises his hand in greeting, and smiles. Sam can see where it’s strained around the corners, but hopefully the old lady doesn’t notice. 

“It’s just me, Mrs G. Sorry I didn’t call first. This is my friend Sam Wilson, we’ll be staying a little while. How’re those two upstairs treating you? OK?”

“Fine, fine,” she replies, voice a little tremulous with age. She ducks back into her apartment, but Sam doesn’t miss the speculative look on her face.

“She’ll be by later,” Steve says as they climb the stairs to the top floor apartment. “She’ll say it’s for tea, but she’ll be checking you out, making sure you’re not bad for me.”

“Gossipy old ladies never change, do they?” Sam replies.

Steve almost smiles. “No.”

\--

The apartment has a nice set up, and it’s homey. It’s big by city standards, and probably huge by New York standards, though Sam doesn’t know for sure. There’s two bedrooms, small but big enough for double beds, and a third that Steve has set up as an office and art studio. There are art supplies scattered throughout, and Sam guesses this is where Steve goes when he needs to be alone, and to lose himself in his art, and he feels a little honored that he brought Sam with him.

All of the furniture looks comfortable and lived-in, older but good quality. The whole apartment really bears no resemblance to the place where Steve stayed in DC, and Sam figures this is more home than anywhere else for Steve, here at the top of this old townhouse where he can be on his own.

Although he’s still tempted to see if he can convince Steve to take him by Stark Tower sometime. He’d like to get a gander at that place.

They get settled in, and Sam finds out that Steve doesn’t scrimp on electronics, at least. There’s Netflix on the tv, and he puts on a movie. Steve makes coffee and sits next to him with a sketchbook, which he proceeds to stare at blankly for almost two hours.

After that, Steve gets up and cracks the window in the living room. The one over the fire escape. When Sam raises an eyebrow at him, he just shrugs, and then goes to bed. He hasn’t said a word since they came into the apartment.

Not that Sam minds.

\--

Steve seems easier here, something akin to relaxed even.

Not entirely, of course. It feels like he’s waiting, holding his breath. By the end of their first week, Mrs G has been by twice, and Steve is so tense he’s practically vibrating with it, all of the time. 

Sam tries to talk to him about it, but Steve waves it off.

“This will work,” he insists. _It has to_ , he doesn’t need to add.

So Sam holds up his hands and backs off, for now.

And yet, despite the tension that’s always there, in his shoulders and back, Steve still seems easier here. It’s a dichotomy.

\--

Steve leaves the window cracked at all times.

\--

They watch a lot of Netflix over the next few days. 

Steve almost always has a sketchpad in hand, and charcoal or pencil. He glances at that cracked window a lot. 

Sam doesn’t ask Steve what he’s drawing, and Steve doesn’t show him.

They both sleep a lot, but that’s probably to be expected after the amount of time they’d spent on the road.

\--

There are a few framed photos on the mantle over the fireplace. On the third afternoon, between episodes of The Office, which makes Sam laugh and Steve just blink owlishly, Sam gets up to look at them. 

At least one of them is original, black and white and slightly grainy, slightly out of focus like the person taking it wasn’t familiar with using a camera. Several of the others are clearly prints, their quality degraded by being scanned and printed out.

“Where’d you get them?” Sam asks.

Steve puts down his sketchbook and stands, stretching a bit before he crosses the room to look at the photos. Sam waits, patiently, while Steve looks at the photos, nostalgia written plain on his features. 

“Most of them are copies,” Steve says, eventually. “They were with my things, that the Smithsonian ended up with. They gave me back a lot of it, but all of these are on display, so I asked if they would make me prints. So they did. Kinda hard to say no, you know?”

“I can imagine,” Sam replies, wry. “I imagine they were just relieved that you didn’t insist they give everything back.”

“I thought about it. They agreed to give me back my sketchbooks after a few more years, so at least I’ll have those back. I think they’re doing some conservation work with them. Paper doesn’t last.”

Sam nods. “What about this one? It looks original.” He points to the photo that had drawn him over in the first place, one of two teens grinning with their arms around each other, clearly dressed in their Sunday best, with attempts made to tame their hair. One of them is clearly a young Steve Rogers, smaller than Sam would’ve expected. The other is just as clearly the boy who would become the Winter Soldier, looking as though he had not a care in the world, grinning at Steve like he hung the moon.

“‘S me and Buck.”

Sam waits for him to elaborate. Eventually, he does.

“My mom was sick, and she was sent away. Tuberculosis.”

Sam nods.

“Yeah. Well, she wrote and asked me if I could try to send her a picture, so I got together with Bucky and we managed to borrow a camera and get our photo taken and send it off to my ma.” Steve shrugs, but he looks wistfully at the photo. “She kept it ‘til she died.”

“Is this the original?”

“Yep.”

“Where’d you find it, man?”

Steve blushes, just a hint of color in his cheeks, and he returns to the couch and picks up his sketchbook, staring intently at it.

“The Library of Congress,” he replies, after a few minutes.

Sam looks at the photo, and then back at Steve.

“You stole this. From the Library of Congress.”

Steve looks up at him and smiles, the first genuine smile Sam’s seen on his face in ages. “Is it really stealing if it was yours to begin with?”

\--

When Sam hasn’t managed to commandeer the remote and turn on Netflix, because SHIELD is gone and the world is sort of going to hell every other day and Steve really doesn’t need more bad news in his life if his Avenger pals aren’t actually specifically calling on him to assemble or whatever, Steve keeps the television tuned to one news station or another. He sticks mostly with BBC World News, but occasionally he’ll switch to CNN. 

He makes a lot of snide comments under his breath about American news networks, but Sam pretends not to hear them. He mostly agrees, anyway.

There’s a brief story about a fire in a warehouse outside Helsinki, a few days after they get to the apartment. It doesn’t seem to be big news because apparently no one died, but the limited information available is that the fire was weird. Steve watches it with rapt attention, taking in every detail, how the fire had raged uncontrollable for hours before firefighters had finally gotten the upper hand. There appear to have been no casualties, but the fire investigators are going to be months in figuring out what happened.

Steve retreats to his room after the report is finished, and Sam doesn’t see him until late the next morning.

A day later, there’s another report, of a fire outside Alexandria, and Steve goes grim and determined after this one. There’s absolutely nothing at all to link the two fires except that they happened so close together, but Steve and Sam exchange a look, because they both know who set both of those fires.Steve takes up his sketchbook and his pencils and spends the rest of the afternoon angrily sketching. Sam can’t tell if he’s angry with himself or with Bucky or with the whole world.

\--

The window is still open, and Sam finds himself glancing its way more and more often as well.

\--

He gets up practically with the sun, gets dressed in his running gear, ties on his shoes. Still rubbing his face, yawning and only kind of awake, Sam wanders out to the kitchen to get a glass of water before leaving for his jog. Steve will wake when he wakes, probably soon, and will catch him up quickly and then pass him too many times to count. Sam’s gotten used to it.

The silence in the apartment is near absolute, except for the quiet, muffled sounds of the city outside. Steven is definitely still be asleep. He’s been sleeping more since they came here, which Sam thinks can only be for the good, though he’s been informed that the serum had reduced Steve’s need for sleep to the bare minimum.

Sam’s a little jealous of that.

And he’s still a little bit asleep, which is probably why he doesn’t notice the man slumped on the couch until he’s gulped down most of his water.

Sam blinks at him, and the Winter Soldier blinks back. 

He looks pretty haggard, the shadows under his eyes deep and purple. His clothes hang off of him, but Sam doubts they were chosen for anything other than convenience. They probably weren’t so much chosen as stolen, anyway. He’s wearing gloves, but Sam’s eye is still drawn to his left side, to the metal arm, even if he can’t see it.

“You here to kill me?” he asks, after a moment of silent staring.

The Soldier shakes his head, once. 

“You here to kill Steve?” Sam asks.

“No,” Barnes replies after a moment, his voice raspy with disuse. He sounds vaguely horrified, vaguely confused, as though he doesn’t understand why that thought horrifies him so, and Sam figures him sounding anything other than mechanical and lifeless is probably a good sign.

“All right then.” Sam turns around and starts running water for coffee. “You drink coffee?” 

Sam glances over at him, and he shrugs in reply. 

“Coffee it is. Steve’s still asleep, but he’ll probably be up soon. Unless you want me to wake him?”

“No.”

Sam nods and pulls out the coffee. Both he and Steve don’t care what kind of coffee they drink, as long as it’s hot and in Steve’s case full of sugar (he claims that it’s not so much the taste he likes as the fact that he _can_ put as much sugar in his coffee as he wants. He seems to find it amazing and delightful, and Sam just goes with it. Man out of time, and all that). Sam’s pretty sure Steve almost prefers the sludgey shit at the bottom of the pot despite all that, but he’s pretty sure that’s simple nostalgia and not much else. Steve is a study in contrasts. Too much sugar or coffee so thick and strong he can stand a spoon in it.

So they drink cheap coffee. Steve hadn’t even owned a coffee pot when they’d moved in, just an ancient stove-top percolator. Sam had taken one look at the contraption, and gone out to get a Mr Coffee. So at least they have fast, hot coffee in the mornings.

Coffee is important. Every soldier knows this, no matter what time they’re from.

Sam talks a bit while he scoops coffee into the filter. “The coffee usually wakes Steve up if he’s not already up. So he’ll be out soon.” He glances over at Barnes, who watches him closely, his face blank, devoid of all emotion. “You ready for that?”

The Winter Soldier doesn’t answer. He doesn’t give any indication that he’s even heard Sam, and Sam figures that’s probably going to happen a lot, so he shrugs and gets the coffee started. 

“You sure kept us waiting, you know. I think Steve’s been doing nothing but drawing you all week.”

Barnes still doesn’t answer, but he’s saved from having to do so by the strangled, choked sound that comes from the direction of Steve’s room. Both men turn to look.

Steve is standing in his doorway in his boxers and a t-shirt, his hair all standing up in every direction and a look that Sam thinks is probably similar to the one he’d worn when he’d woken up and realized it was seventy years later than he thought it should be on his face.

“Bucky?” he breathes, and Sam feels his heart break just a little at the hope in his voice.

Barnes watches him, wary.

Steve stumbles across the room, graceless and gangly the way Sam has never seen (and he suspects Barnes has), and drops to his knees in front of Barnes, between his sprawled legs.

Barnes is blinking at him, a look like fear on his face. Sam can’t see Steve’s face anymore, but he knows how earnest Steve can look, and Barnes does not seem immune to that look at all.

Steve reaches out, hesitant, and lays his hand on his friend’s knee, as though he perhaps can’t believe his luck.

Barnes just keeps blinking at him.

All at once, Steve is moving, leaning forward, pressing his face into Barnes’s stomach, wrapping his arms tight around him.

Barnes stares down at the man wrapped around his lower body, wide-eyed, fearful and awed and something else Sam can’t quite place. His arms are spread, up and carefully not touching Steve, and he briefly looks up at Sam. Sam shrugs and makes a gesture, like _go ahead_. Barnes blinks down at Steve for a moment more, then slowly, he lowers his arms, until his right hand is on Steve’s back, between his shoulders. 

“Steve,” he says, his voice soft and raspy.

After a moment, he lifts his hand (Steve makes a muffled noise that sounds like protest), and takes off the glove, and then replaces it, against the back of Steve’s neck. His left hand he leaves gloved, but he puts that one on Steve’s back.

Under his hands, Steve’s back heaves, like maybe he’s just sobbed, but he doesn’t make any more sounds, just keeps himself slumped over Bucky’s lap, pressed into his torso and wrapped around him.

Next to Sam, the coffee maker burbles and then beeps to let him know that it’s finished.

\--

Sam hands Barnes a cup of coffee. Barnes takes it with his left hand, and sips it. He leaves his right hand against Steve’s neck.

Steve doesn’t move. He gives no indication that he’s aware of anything outside of himself, outside of himself hugging Bucky.

“Steve, coffee,” Sam says. He sets Steve’s mug down on the table, near at hand.

Sam makes breakfast.

\--

Sam climbs out onto the fire escape and then heads up towards the roof.

Steve had eventually unwrapped himself from around Bucky and sat back, his eyes red and wide. His hair still sticks up every which way. He drinks his coffee even though it’s warm at best, and eats the breakfast that Sam puts in front of him.

Barnes eats a bit of the food that Sam gives him as well, although only after he’s seen both him and Steve eat, only after he’s sure that all the food is from the same source and obviously isn’t poisoned.

He’s a paranoid motherfucker, but Sam supposes that’s to be expected.

Steve mostly stares at him, a look like he truly can’t believe his luck on his face. It’s just as clearly making Barnes uncomfortable. Hell, it made Sam a little uncomfortable, and he wasn’t the one subjected to it.

So Barnes had beat a strategic retreat, when Steve was in the bathroom.

Sam left Steve having a panic attack in the living room, worried he’d driven his friend away already.

“Sit the fuck down, dude” Sam had ordered. “Let me go talk to him.”

Steve had sat, reluctantly. Sam had expected some retort, and took it as a sign of his distress that Steve hadn’t made one.

Barnes is sitting at the edge of the roof. His shoulders are hunched. Maybe it’s against the wind, but Sam doesn’t think so. He crosses the roof and sits next to him.

“I didn’t think you need him being guilty at you right now.”

“It’s not his fault,” Barnes replies. It’s the most he’s said at once all day.

“Not yours, either,” Sam points out.

Barnes snorts.

“He can be intense,” Sam adds. “It can be a little intimidating, the whole American icon thing.”

“He’s a dumb punk,” Barnes mutters. But he looks guilty, like he’s letting Steve down by needing some space, by not being entirely ready, though he’s the one who showed up today.

“It’s ok if you need space, you know.”

Barnes looks at him. “You a shrink or something?”

“Or something. What if it had been Steve who fell?” He’s not going to push, but he wants to make his point.

Barnes flinches.

“And you who went into the ice. And you woke up and found out they’d gotten their hands on him.”

Bucky growls, and Sam wants to beat his own hasty retreat, but he doesn’t.

“That’s how he feels, man. Now, do me a favor, and be kind to yourself. I can’t imagine even a little bit of what you’re going through, but cut yourself a little slack. I know you’re not ready, but later on, if you want, I know some folks who can help. With the way you feel. And Steve can help. He loves you. Desperately.”

“It’s not like that,” Bucky says. “Never was.”

“Are you sure?” Sam claps him on the back and climbs to his feet. “I’m not gonna drag you back downstairs, but come on back down if you’d like. I can’t promise Steve won’t cry on you some more, but he’ll settle down soon. Otherwise, we’ll leave the window cracked for you, so you can do that creepy sneaking in in the middle of the night thing again.”

Bucky almost smiles.


End file.
